Is it possible to predict the future? Of course not. But it is sometimes possible to see what’s coming, if you look far enough to the sides, which is where most new ideas tend to start. Heretics are the great unwashed of corporate growth. They see things that others don’t and they change things. For example, Dell started off by questioning an orthodoxy, which was that computer makers couldn’t sell computers directly to the public via customisable components and mail order. In a sense, Dell therefore anticipated both the rise of online retail and the personalisation of electronic devices.

Or how about Nicholas Negroponte’s One Laptop per Child Project (OLPC). This was intended to provide a low-cost ($100) alternative to conventional laptops, but ended up creating the sub category of netbooks or sub-notebooks. As Michael Dell once said: ”It’s through curiosity and looking at opportunities in new ways that we’ve always mapped our path”.